‘Why not now?’ said Warren. ‘I’ll collect my chaps.’
Before going into the bar Warren paused and said, ‘We’re here on business. Mr Lane will indicate unobtrusively the man we’ve come to see—and the operative word is see. Take a good look at him so that you’ll recognize him again anywhere—but don’t make it obvious. The idea is to see and not be seen. I suggest we split up.’
They crossed the foyer and went into the bar. Warren spotted Speering immediately and veered away from him. He had seen Speering on several occasions in London and, although he did not think he was known to Speering, it was best to make sure he was not observed. He turned his back on the room, leaned on the bar counter and ordered a drink.
The man next to him turned. ‘Hi, there!’
Warren nodded politely. ‘Good evening.’
‘You with IMEG?’ The man was American.
‘IMEG?’
The man laughed. ‘I guess not. I saw you were British and I guessed you might be with IMEG.’
‘I don’t even know what IMEG is,’ said Warren. He looked into the mirror at the back of the bar and saw Tozier sitting at a table and ordering a drink.
‘It’s just about the biggest thing to hit this rathole of a country,’ said the American. He was slightly drunk. ‘We’re reaming a forty-inch gas line right up the middle—Abadan right to the Russian border. Over six hundred million bucks’ worth. Money’s flowing like…like money.’ He laughed.
‘Indeed!’ said Warren. He was not very interested.
‘IMEG’s bossing the show—that’s you British. Me—I’m with Williams Brothers, who are doing the goddam work. Call that a fair division of labour?’
‘It sounds like a big job,’ said Warren evasively. He shifted his position and saw Follet at the other end of the bar.
‘The biggest.’ The American swallowed his drink. ‘But the guys who are going to take the cream are the Russkis. Christ, what a set-up! They’ll take Iranian gas at under two cents a therm, and they’ve pushed a line through to Trieste so they can sell Russian gas to the Italians at over three cents a therm. Don’t tell me those Bolshevik bastards aren’t good capitalists.’ He nudged Warren. ‘Have a drink.’
‘No, thanks,’ said Warren. ‘I’m expecting a friend.’
‘Aw, hell!’ The American looked at his watch. ‘I guess I’ve gotta eat, anyway. See you around.’
As he left, Tozier came up to the bar with his drink in his hand. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘A lonely drunk.’
‘I’ve seen your man,’ said Tozier. ‘He looks like another drunk. What now?’
‘Now we don’t lose him.’
‘And then?’
Warren shrugged. ‘Then we find out what we find out.’ Tozier was silent for a while. He pulled out his cigarette case, lit a cigarette and blew out a long plume of smoke. ‘It’s not good enough, Nick. I don’t like acting in the dark.’
‘Sorry to hear it.’
‘You’ll be even sorrier when I pull out tomorrow.’ Warren turned his head sharply, and Tozier said, ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you can’t run this operation by keeping everything under wraps. How the hell can I do a job if I don’t know what I’m doing?’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way about it, Andy. Don’t you trust me?’
‘Oh, I trust you. The trouble is that you don’t trust me. So I’m pulling out, Nick—I’ll be back in London tomorrow night. You’ve got something on Johnny Follet, and you might have something on Ben Bryan for all I know. But I’m clean, Nick; I’m in this for honest reasons—just for the money.’
‘So stay and earn it.’
Tozier shook his head gently. ‘Not without knowing what I’m getting into—and why. I told you once that I like to have something to shoot back with if someone shoots at me. I also like to know why he’s shooting at me. Hell, I might approve of his reasons—I might even be on his side if I knew the score.’
Warren’s hand tightened on his glass. He was being pushed into a decision. ‘Andy, you do jobs for money. Would you smuggle dope for money?’
‘The problem has never come up,’ said Tozier reflectively. ‘Nobody has ever made the proposition. Are you asking me, Nick?’
‘Do I look like a dope smuggler?’ said Warren in disgust.
‘I don’t know,’ said Tozier. ‘I don’t know how a dope smuggler behaves. I do know that the straightest people get
bent under pressure. You’ve been under pressure for quite some time, Nick; I’ve watched you struggling against it.’ He drained his glass. ‘Now that the question has arisen,’ he said, ‘the answer is no. I wouldn’t smuggle dope for money. And I think you’ve turned into a right son of a bitch, Nick; you’ve tried to con me into this thing and it hasn’t worked, has it?’
Warren blew out his cheeks and let the air escape in a long sigh. Internally he was cheering to the sound of trumpets. He grinned at Tozier. ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Andy. Let me tell you about it—around the corner out of the sight of Speering.’
He took Tozier by the arm and steered him to a table and in five minutes had given him the gist of it. Tozier listened and a slightly stupefied expression appeared on his face. He said, ‘And that’s all you have to go on? Have you gone out of your mind?’
‘It’s not much,’ admitted Warren. ‘But it’s all we have.’
Suddenly, Tozier chuckled. ‘It’s just mad enough to be interesting. I’m sorry if I got things wrong just now, Nick; but you were being so bloody mysterious.’ He nodded ruefully. ‘I can see the position you were in—you can’t trust anyone in this racket. Okay, I’m with you.’
‘Thanks, Andy,’ said Warren quietly.
Tozier called up a waiter and ordered drinks. ‘Let’s get practical,’ he said. ‘You were right in one thing—I wouldn’t let a breath of this leak out to Johnny Follet. If there’s any money in it Johnny will want to cut his share, and he won’t be too particular how he does it. But all the same, he’s a good man to have along, and we can use him as long as you keep that stranglehold tight. What have you got on him, anyway?’
‘Does it matter?’
Tozier shrugged. ‘I suppose not. Now, what are your ideas on Speering?’
‘He’s come here to extract morphine from opium, I’m fairly sure of that,’ said Warren. ‘That’s why he went to a wholesale pharmaceutical firm yesterday. He was ordering supplies.’
‘What would he need?’
‘Pharmaceutical quality lime, methylene chloride, benzene, amyl alcohol and hydrochloric acid, plus a quantity of glassware.’ Warren paused. ‘I don’t know if he intends transforming the morphine into heroin here. If he does he’ll need acetic acid as well.’
Tozier frowned. ‘I don’t quite understand this. What’s the difference between morphine and heroin?’
The drinks arrived and Warren did not reply until the waiter had gone. ‘Morphine is an alkaloid extracted from opium by a relatively simple chemical process. Heroin is morphine with its molecular structure altered by an even simpler process.’ He grimaced. ‘That job could be done in a well-equipped kitchen.’
‘But what’s the difference?’
‘Well, heroin is the acetylated form of morphine. It’s soluble in water, which morphine is not, and since the human body mostly consists of water it gets to the spot faster. Various properties are accentuated and it’s a damned sight more addictive than morphine.’
Tozier leaned back. ‘So Speering is going to extract the morphine. But where? Here in Iran? And how is the morphine—or heroin—going to get to the coast? South to the Persian Gulf? Or across Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean? We have to find out one hell of a lot of things, Nick.’
‘Yes,’ said Warren gloomily. ‘And there’s one big problem I can’t see past at all. It’s something I haven’t even discussed with Hellier.’
‘Oh! Well, you’d better spit it out.’
Warren said flatly, ‘There’s no opium in Iran.’
Tozier stared at him. ‘I thought all these Middle East countries were rotten with the stuff.’
‘They are—and so was Iran under the old Shah. But this new boy is a reformer.’ Warren leaned his elbows on the table. ‘Under the old Shah things went to hell in a bucket. He was running Iran on the lines of the old Roman Empire—in order to keep in sweet with the populace he kept the price of grain down to an artificial low level. That was a self-defeating policy because the farmers found they couldn’t make a living growing grain, so they planted poppies instead—a much more profitable crop. So there was less and less grain and more and more opium.’ He grimaced. ‘The old Shah didn’t mind because he created the Opium Monopoly; there was a government tax and he got a rake-off from every pound collected.’
‘A sweet story,’ said Tozier.
‘You haven’t heard the half of it. In 1936 Iranian opium production was 1,350 metric tons. World requirements of medicinal opium were 400 tons.’
Tozier jerked. ‘You mean the old bastard was smuggling the stuff.’
‘He didn’t need to,’ said Warren. ‘It wasn’t illegal. He was the law in Iran. He just sold the stuff to anyone who had the money to pay for it. He was on to a good thing, but all good things come to an end. He pushed his luck too far and was forced to abdicate. There was a provisional government for a while, and then the present Shah took over. Now, he was a really bright boy. He wanted to drag this woebegone country into the twentieth century by the scruff of its neck, but he found that you can’t have industrialism in a country where seventy-five per cent of the population are opium addicts. So he clamped down hard and fast, and I doubt if you can find an ounce of illegal opium in the country today.’
Tozier looked baffled. ‘Then what is Speering doing here?’
‘That’s the problem,’ said Warren blandly. ‘But I don’t propose asking him outright.’
‘No,’ said Tozier pensively. ‘But we stick to him closer than his shirt.’
A waiter came and and said enquiringly, ‘Mistair Warren?’
‘I’m Warren.’
‘A message for you, sair.’
‘Thank you,’ Warren raised his eyebrows at Tozier as he tipped the waiter. A minute later he said, ‘It’s from Lane. Speering has given up his reservation—he’s leaving tomorrow. Lane doesn’t know where he’s going, but his jeep has been serviced and there are water cans in the back. What do you suppose that means?’
‘He’s leaving Tehran,’ said Tozier with conviction. ‘I’d better get back to check on the trucks; I’d like to see if the radios are still in working order. We’ll leave separately—give me five minutes.’
Warren waited impatiently for the time to elapse, then got up and walked out of the bar. As he passed Speering he almost stopped out of sheer surprise. Speering was sitting with Johnny Follet and they were both tossing coins.
Speering headed north-west from Tehran on the road to Qazvin. ‘You get ahead of him and I’ll stick behind,’ said Tozier to Warren. ‘We’ll have him like the meat in a sandwich. If he turns off the road I’ll get on to you on the blower.’
They had kept an all night watch on Speering’s jeep but it had been a waste of time. He had a leisurely breakfast and did not leave Tehran until ten, and with him was a sharpfeatured Iranian as chauffeur. They trailed the jeep through thick traffic out of the city and once they were on the main road Warren put on a burst of speed, passed Speering, and then slowed down to keep a comfortable distance ahead.
Follet, in the passenger seat, kept a sharp eye astern, using the second rear view mirror which was one of Tozier’s modifications.
To the right rose the snow-capped peaks of the Elburz Mountains but all around was a featureless plain, dusty and monotonous. The road was not particularly good as far as Warren could judge, but he had been educated to more exacting standards than the Iranian driver and he reflected that by Iranian standards it was probably excellent. After all, it was the main arterial highway to Tabriz.
As soon as he became accustomed to driving the Land-Rover he said to Follet abruptly, ‘You were talking to Speering last night. What about?’
‘Just passing the time of day,’ said Follet easily.
‘Don’t make a mistake, Johnny,’ said Warren softly. ‘You could get hurt—badly.’
‘Hell, it was nothing,’ protested Follet. ‘It wasn’t even my doing. He came over to me—what else was I expected to do besides talk to him?’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘This and that. Our jobs. I told him I was with Regent Films. You know—all this crap about the film we’re making. He said he worked for an oil company.’ He laughed. ‘I took some of his money off him, too.’
‘I saw you,’ said Warren acidly. ‘What did you use—a two-headed penny?’
Follet raised his hands in mock horror. ‘As God is my judge, I didn’t cheat him. You know that’s not my style. I didn’t have to, anyway; he was pretty near blind drunk.’ His eyes flicked up to the mirror. ‘Slow down a bit—we’re losing him.’
From Tehran to Qazvin was nearly a hundred miles and it was almost one o’clock when they neared the outskirts of the town. As they were driving through the loudspeaker crackled into life. ‘Calling Regent Two. Calling Regent Two. Over.’
Follet picked up the microphone and thumbed the switch. ‘You’re coming in fine, Regent One. Over.’
Tozier’s voice was thin and distorted. ‘Our man has stopped at a hotel. I think he’s feeding his face. Over.’
‘That’s a damned good idea; I’m hungry myself,’ said Follet, and raised an eyebrow at Warren.
‘We’ll pull off the road at the other side of town,’ said Warren. ‘Tell him that.’ He carried on until he was well past the outskirts of Qazvin and then pulled up on a hard shoulder. ‘There’s a hamper in the back,’ he said. ‘I gave Ben the job of quartermaster; let’s see how good he is.’
Warren felt better after chicken sandwiches and hot coffee from a flask, but Follet seemed gloomy. ‘What a crummy country,’ he said. ‘We’ve travelled a hundred miles and those goddam mountains haven’t changed an inch.’ He pointed to a string of laden camels coming down the road. ‘What’s the betting we end up on the back of a thing like that?’
‘We could do worse,’ said Warren thoughtfully. ‘I have the idea that these Land-Rovers are a shade too conspicuous for a shadowing job like this.’ He picked up a map. ‘I wonder where Speering is going.’
Follet looked over his shoulder. ‘The next town is Zanjan—another hundred goddam miles.’ He looked around. ‘Christ, isn’t this country horrible? Worse than Arizona.’
‘You’ve been there?’